


Graduation

by BarlowGirl



Series: Babies and Junk [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Babies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8183468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarlowGirl/pseuds/BarlowGirl
Summary: Derek Hale has a toddler. Stiles is still entirely unsure how to handle this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to have this up yesterday, but I have been having the worst luck with random technology stuff lately. Tumblr refuses to let me upload pictures to it. In trying to fix that, Firefox wouldn't play nice with my antivirus and it took me forever to fix that. But I broke my Xkit and lost all my settings. 
> 
> And then when I had this all tagged, edited, and proofed, and I went to post it? AO3 had an error and it didn't even save as a draft.
> 
> Are there Gremlins? Because I think there might be Gremlins.
> 
> Anyways! I can't remember how many chapters this is going divide into, but I think it's 4 or 5. I'll update it next Friday.
> 
> Same things basically apply as the last one. I'll update this every Friday until this work is completely posted. And if you like what I'm doing here and want to send me moral support for my terrible luck, come hang out with me on [Tumblr](http://barlowstreet.tumblr.com/post/151220254193/well-theres-a-bio-under-this-read-more)

Stiles goes back to school about halfway through January. It's hard. He misses Grace and he misses Derek and Skype and videos and pictures aren’t enough when she’s growing up so fast and he can’t be there. He comes home on weekends even though it’s like a three hour drive, and reminds himself constantly that it’s only until May when he can come home permanently.

It’s still hard.

Especially when they start talking about Grace’s first birthday. Her birthday’s right at the  beginning of March and technically he doesn’t have a holiday, or a break, or anything but he’s not going to miss that for the world. He leaves right after his last class on Thursday with plans to beg somebody for notes from his Friday morning class when he gets back to school on Monday.

Her birthday is on a Friday and he’s going to be there no matter what. He’s helped Derek pick out a dress for her and he’s had her presents wrapped and in his car for a week.

She’s starting to talk a little more, fairly consistently insisting on calling Derek “hi”, and calling Stiles “Ti” pretty regularly when they Skype, and they’ve been talking about how she’s gonna have a birthday soon. She doesn’t really seem to get it, but she gets excited when they mention it.

He misses her ridiculous amounts.

“We miss you, too,” Derek says, every time they talk.

Stiles is pretty sure she still doesn’t quite understand how computers work. She frowns fiercely when she reaches out to touch him and only gets screen. Once, while Stiles has Skype open while he writes a paper and Derek is working, (and, lord, how his roommate had made fun of him for that), he goes to the bathroom and comes back to find Derek holding an inconsolable Grace because, apparently, she was listening to them talk while she played and when he stopped, she freaked out.

It breaks his heart and he spends extra time cuddling her when he’s home.

Stiles is very careful not to speed. He honestly doesn’t trust his dad not to have spies and, besides, he doesn’t want to get into the habit and end up setting a bad example for Grace when she’s older.

He gets to Derek’s house right as Grace should be waking up from her nap. For a moment, he sits in his car and just looks at the house. It’s not huge, not like the Hale house used to be. Three bedrooms, one that Derek uses as an office. Big bathroom/laundry room combination downstairs, and one with a tub for Grace's bath upstairs. Unfinished basement, but there's a lot of space down there, and a nice-sized backyard. All in all, it’s just a nice house, but it’s not anything that isn’t ordinary.

And yet, Stiles’ heart does things when he looks at it. Though that probably has to do more with who’s waiting for him inside.

Derek opens the door as he walks up the steps. “Took you long enough,” he grumbles.

Stiles grins. “Speed limits are a thing I have to obey. Is she still asleep?”

“Yeah. You want to get her when she wakes up?”

“Absolutely.” Stiles steps through the door, closes it behind him, and drops his bag. “But until she wakes up, I’m wanna make out with you.”

When Grace wakes up and they hear her crying over the baby monitor, Stiles peels himself off Derek and takes off so fast that he’s pretty sure he’s not moving at an entirely human speed. Sue him, he’s missed his favourite girl.

He eases her door open, tiptoeing over to her crib. He leans over and whispers, “Hi, baby.” He picks her up and possibly squishes her a little by the way she complains at him. “Oh, honey, hi, I know, I’m sorry.” He has to press a couple kisses to her chubby cheeks. “I missed you.”

 

 

 

“I’m glad you made it home,” Derek tells Stiles during Grace’s bath.

There’s a second step for Stiles to sit on next to Derek’s, now, because his knees just are not up for kneeling on the floor for that long. Whenever Stiles is home, he hangs around while Derek does Grace’s bath. It’s nice to sit and talk and reconnect with both of them. Bedtime is usually Derek and Grace time, though.

“I mean, you probably shouldn’t be skipping class,” he says, his voice flat. Then he grins, slow and easy. “But I’m glad you did.”

“Me too,” Stiles says. “Seriously, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

They possibly have a moment.

And then it’s ruined by Grace spraying Stiles with water.

“I’m going to kill Cora for getting her those,” Derek growls.

Stiles just laughs.

They have a good ritual these days when he’s home with them. Stiles cleans up the bathroom and whatever’s left from dinner while Derek puts Grace down. Derek really treasures the time before bed with Grace and Stiles doesn’t mind loading the dishwasher and cleaning up some if it means he gets to treasure some time with Derek himself.

If you know what he means.

Derek has a weird amount of nervous energy. Especially weird because, well, Stiles is usually the one with too much energy. By the time he’s worn out enough to sleep, Stiles is completely and utterly boneless. Seriously, he’s like a jellyfish here. He’s not entirely sure he still has legs, his spine has melted, and his scalp is pleasantly sore.

“You okay?” he manages a little while later, when they’re both cleaned up and back in their pajamas. Stiles kinda needed help with that part. Seriously, jelly legs.

“Yeah.” Derek settles into bed next to him, handing him a bottle of water because he’s lovely like that. “Just thinking a lot. My baby’s gonna be a year old,” he says and Stiles has to laugh at him, gently.

“You survived for a whole year,” Stiles says. He’s joking, but Derek goes quiet for a moment.

“We did, didn’t we?”

Stiles rolls onto his side, tugging Derek in a little closes and pressing a kiss to his jaw. “Yeah. Congratulations, you have a toddler now.”

“I think I’m gonna cry,” Derek mutters.

“I won’t tell,” Stiles says softly.

 

 

 

When Grace wakes up that night, Derek stumbles out of bed, clumsy with sleep in a way that makes Stiles grin. They both come back a moment later, with Derek yawning and Grace already heavy-headed on his shoulder. She’s got the slightest grumpy look on her face. It’s probably the Hale eyebrows, though. And the elephant pajamas really make the whole look much less threatening than it ever did on Derek.

“Is it weird,” Derek says, “That even though I’m exhausted, I’m going to miss this when she starts sleeping through the night more often?”

“A little,” Stiles says, but he’s already reaching for them so who is he to speak, really.

He loves the way she fits between them. Fairly often he ends up with her fingers in his ear or her knee in his ribs because she takes up more space than anyone her size should, but it feels… it just feels right to have her warm little body there – seriously the kid is like a space heater – and honestly? He’ll miss this too.

 

 

 

In the morning, Stiles makes pancakes for them all. He puts frozen blueberries in Grace’s pancakes – he likes the way they go soft they cook so they’re easier for her to eat – and chocolate chips in Derek’s. Hey, Derek deserves to celebrate, too, as far as Stiles is concerned. Grace gets a little extra syrup, too, which predictably ends up everywhere.

Derek sponges her down on the bathroom counter afterwards while Stiles watches from where he leans against the doorframe, grinning.

“I seriously don’t know how you ended up with syrup down the back of your pajamas,” Derek says to Grace. She dimples up at him from where she’s sitting in just her diaper. Well, just the diaper and lots and lots of syrup. “I’m not entirely I want to know.”

Afterwards, Derek wraps a towel around her to keep her warm and arranges his face into his Very Serious Look. Grace immediately returns her own Very Serious Look. Stiles resists the urge to snap a picture. One day, he’s going to have to get this on video.

“Good morning,” Derek says, then, “Hi.”

“Hi!” Grace replies. She likes “hi”, Stiles knows. There was a good stretch of time when she called Derek “hi” exclusively, even looking for him when other people said it to her. Lately, she’s added in a “Da”, with the occasional “Bye” that she expects Derek to know means him.

“Daddy,” Derek says next and waits.

Grace frowns for a moment, then brightens. “Hi!”

Derek looks a little disappointed, but he kisses her on the forehead. “Hi, Grace.”

“Hi, Daddy,” she says cheerfully.

Stiles swears Derek nearly passes out.

They’re having Grace’s birthday party as a lunch type thing. She naps from about nine-thirty to eleven-thirty so it’ll hopefully work out well that she’ll be freshly napped and they’ll have time to give her a bottle and a light lunch a little early so she’ll be able to last until everyone else gets here.

It’s just going to be a small party, considering she won’t remember it, with their family and friends. She doesn’t really have baby friends at her age and Derek thinks that a big party with a lot of people she doesn’t know well would just overwhelm her. This’ll be better, a relaxed group of people who all adore her.

And lots and lots of food. It’s still weird to Stiles that Derek can cook. They’re – well, Derek is just going to grill some steaks and burgers and stuff. But he’s also made a couple huge bowls of salads and has possibly been spending a little too much time on Pinterest because he’s very into arranging the fruits and veggie platter trays and even made a very small cake for Grace.

“She’s just gonna end up wearing it,” Derek says when Stiles sees it. “I bought one from the bakery for all of us. And I got a pack of chicken burgers for your dad. You want me to cook them or are you gonna let him have a steak?”

“Well.” Stiles leans against the counter, absently running his fingers down Derek’s arm. Derek shivers. “I suppose I could let him. Considering it’s a special occasion. Scott likes chicken burgers, too, though, if you want to cook them anyways. Then you can eat his steak.”

“You’ll eat his steak,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. “And then you’ll eat your dad’s macaroni salad and something off my plate that I only took because you like it and then you’ll eat ridiculous amounts of cake when you’re already stuffed and complain about how full you are until I try and clean up the leftovers and then you’ll eat the rest of a bowl of something and complain some more.”

Stiles stares at him. “Are you psychic?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I woke up at like 3 in the morning today. But I didn't want to disappoint you guys by not posting the new chapter, so this is going up anyways.
> 
> I'm going to proof this to the best of my abilities, but I am very caffeinated and very tired already, so I'll re-read this tomorrow to double-check for any typos or weirdness. If you notice anything, please tell me, and I apologize.
> 
> Since it's Thanksgiving on Sunday, I'm not exactly sure what time I'll do my re-read/typo fixing, but I will try very, very hard to do it tomorrow. Now I will stop rambling.
> 
> *insert something about hanging out on Tumblr with me here*

Grace is absolutely amazing. First of all, she’s in the cutest yellow dress and white leggings – no shoes or socks, to her delight – and she literally looks like spring and sunshine and all the warm and lovely things that make Stiles have to pause now and then to loudly kiss her cheeks so she laughs.

Besides that, she seems to be having a blast. She puts up with people saying hi just to hear her say hi back and spends some time sitting on Stiles’ dad’s knee. His dad is great with her, completely dotes on her. They’ve talked about it, and his dad is good with this. Approves of him dating Derek, even, which Stiles didn't entirely believe would happen.

“He’s a good man, he’s a good father, and as long as he’s good to you, we’re okay”, Dad said when they talked about it. “And I’m proud of you for being there for both of them.”

Stiles is aware that it can be hard for people with kids to date, but he also knows that he couldn’t not love Grace. He just… did. And does.

“Okay, Grace, say Scott.”

Stiles drops down in the chair next to Scott. He has Grace sitting on the table in front of him and is giving her a serious look that is not even close to as serious as Derek and Grace’s Very Serious Looks. It doesn’t even deserve capitals.

He raises an eyebrow at Scott. “Seriously, man?”

Scott shoots a frown at him. “She said ‘dad’ already. I waited so it wouldn’t be the first name she said! Now she can say Scott. Right, honey? You wanna say Scott?”

“She said Stiles’ name first,” Derek says, dropping a hand on Stiles’ shoulder.

He twists to look up. “What? No, she didn’t. She said yours first.”

“She started saying ‘Ti’ about the same time as she said ‘Da’,” Derek argues.

Stiles shakes his head. “That’s because she thought your name was ‘Hi’, dude. I think she only started trying for ‘Dad’ because you weren’t realizing when she wanted you to do stuff.”

Scott laughs, pressing kisses to Grace’s hands when she holds them out to him, then pretending to eat them. “Scott,” he says to her.

“Hi,” she says back.

Later, they spread out a couple picnic blankets on the lawn because Derek is slightly stressed out about the idea of Grace getting too close to the barbecue on the deck despite the fact that there are multiple werewolves and two grown adults who raised Scott and Stiles. Seriously, Stiles’ dad alone could probably wrangle a room of toddlers just from the experience of raising him, but tell that to the nervous werewolf.

Grace likes wandering around, anyways. She finds a patch of daisies in the corner of the yard and picks them, one by one, bringing them back to drop them in Stiles’ lap. He thanks her profusely for each one and she smiles and goes off to get another. When there’s a pile of flowers, Scott reaches over and grabs a few. He weaves them together as she brings more back and, eventually, sets a crown of them on her head.

Stiles stops talking to take a picture of her beaming at them.

Grace doesn’t eat a lot of cake or cookies or anything like that. She likes goldfish more than Teddy Grahams, and Derek will usually put something sweet with dinner every day, and sometimes there are – Scott – Cheetos, but for the most part, she’s a big fan of fruit and veggies right now and goes more for salty things, if anything.

But having a whole cake, even if it’s small, to herself?

She’s in baby heaven.

Derek ducked into the house and changed her quickly into a T-shirt so they didn’t have to worry about her dress getting covered in cake – Derek’s weirdly sentimental about these things and that’s probably gonna be one of the things he holds onto – and she just coats herself in cake. Stiles is pretty sure she ends up wearing a lot more than she eats, but the thing is definitely smashed by the time she’s done.

There are a lot of pictures taken. By everyone.

When Grace starts slowing down, Derek sets down his plate of half-eaten cake and stands up in front of where they have Grace’s high chair set up on the deck. “Someone wanna open the door for me? C’mere, Grace, let’s go get cleaned up.”

Grace immediately reaches for him and pouts fiercely when he holds her at arm’s length.

Derek sighs. “Better than viscera, I guess,” he mumbles and lets her snuggle in against him, smearing frosting and cake everywhere.

There may just be a picture or two taken of that. By Stiles.

Almost as they come back outside, Derek starts to clean up, and Stiles has to force him into a chair to make him stop. They’re surrounded by werewolves and his dad on free reign to eat whatever junk he wants. The longer they leave it, the less there’ll be to clean up and eat as leftovers. Besides, there’s a chunk of cake that Derek left that Stiles has very selflessly not eaten and Scott’s playing with Grace to try and burn off the sugar.

Stiles grabs a can of root beer and then sits on Derek to keep him from moving. They can darn well relax for a couple minutes while Scott wears Grace out. They are adults and they can enjoy occasionally pawning her off on somebody when she’s so riled up on sugar, damn it.

Also Stiles has his eye on the last of the bowl of macaroni salad and he’s gonna need time to recover if he goes for it.

“Can I help you?” Derek grumbles because he’s a grump like that.

Stiles reaches up and brushes his thumb over Derek’s eyebrow, gently smoothing it down. “Nah, you’re good,” he says. He’s half tempted to drop a kiss onto Derek’s forehead to see if it’d make him blush, but his dad is right there and he’s already sitting on Derek. Probably better not to push it too much.

Derek rolls his eyes, but he rests his hand on Stiles’ back as he reaches for his abandoned cake.

Ten minutes later, Stiles is complaining about his stomach, ignoring the blatantly rude comments from his friends and family about the macaroni salad, when Scott, looking ruffled and grass-stained and a little out of breath, sets Grace down in Stiles’ lap.

“Hi!” she says immediately when she sees Derek.

Derek smiles at her. “Hi, Grace.”

“You’re never doing that to me again,” Scott says, collapsing into a chair next to his mother. “No more sugar, ever.”

“You introduced her to Cheetos,” Derek says calmly. “You earned this.”

Nothing’s really been formal – Grace _is_ only a year old and huge birthday parties for one year olds are just weird, if you ask Stiles – so people kind of drift off at their own paces. They thank people for Grace’s gifts and apologize for not opening them during the party because it’s a little too overwhelming for her.

Grace conks out when there’s just Scott and Stiles’ dad and Melissa left. Stiles lets her sleep for a bit in his arms while they talk, but as soon as he’s sure she’s not going to wake up as soon as he moves, he stands up.

“I can get her down if you want,” he says, swaying gently in place.

Derek shakes his head. “No, I’ll do it.”

Stiles gets it. Shocker of shocker, Derek is not exactly a people person. He’s very much an introvert. Big groups like this are hard on him, especially when they’re around Grace, even if they are people he knows and cares about. A little time alone – and a little time alone with Grace – is good for him.

As Derek takes Grace into the house, Melissa stretches and stands up. “Help me take the food inside, Scott.”

“C’mon, I’ll help you clean up the yard,” Dad says to Stiles.

 It’s nice, actually, all of them working together to tidy up. It feels like they’re family, a mishmashed, jumbled together, wonderful family. And as much as it make him happy, Stiles is especially glad that Grace will have this growing up, a family that will love and cherish her.

“Deep thoughts?” his dad asks as they’re gathering up the toys that Scott and Grace scattered. “You’re quiet.”

Stiles snorts. “Sappy ones. Grace is growing up so fast. She’s not gonna be a baby forever.”

“They’ll always be your baby, though,” Dad says, smiling.

“Again with the sap!” Stiles grins back, though, and lets his dad ruffle his hair. “I’m coming home after graduation,” he says, quietly, staring at the ball in his hands. It’s red and covered in white stars and Grace loves it. “This is where I want to be. I don’t – I’ll find a job or something, but this is… I’m happy here, with them, and I’ve never wanted anything more.”

“You’re worried I’m going to be disappointed that you’re not going to do something else?” his dad says, picking up a truck. “I’m not going to lie, I expected you to take over the world. But, kid, do you really think I could look at you and how happy you are and not want that for you?”

There’s a possibility that Stiles is tearing up a little. Just a little. It’s been a long day, okay, and there’s been a lot going on.

“Derek makes you happy,” Dad says. “It’s impossible to not see that. And frankly, I’m pretty darned fond of that little girl myself. As long as this is what you want, I want it for you and I’m never going to be anything less than proud of you.”

There’s a possibility that the Stilinski men have to drop everything then to hug it out.

 

 

“Do you think anyone gave her something distracting so we can relax for a while?” Derek asks in the evening after the light dinner they’d thrown together out of leftovers and random crap out of the fridge, when they’re finally slumped on the couch, both exhausted.

Stiles sits up. “Oh, I did. Hold on a minute.”

The box is… a little oversized. Just a little. And possibly Stiles spent a little too much money on it. But he’s pretty sure that Grace will love it once she finishes ripping the wrapping paper into the smallest possible pieces.

“Babyzilla!” Stiles laughs and helps her get into the box when she finally gets tired of the wrapping paper.

“Stiles…” Derek says, surprise in his voice.

“There’s a hundred blocks. Tons of shapes and sizes. They’re handmade and all real, natural wood, nothing funky in them. They’ll grow with her.” Stiles runs his hand over Grace’s head. “She should be able to have them for a good long time. And I know how much she loves them.”

Derek leans over and kisses him, very gently. “She loves you.”

“Yeah, well. I love her, too.”

They spend the rest of the evening before bed building towers with Grace and letting her knock them down. She’s loved blocks since she first started to play with toys, soft ones when she was still tiny, giant ones that made an extra exciting racket when she knocked them down, floating bath ones. He knew that she’d love these.

And, yeah, maybe it was a little expensive – maybe a little more than a little expensive – but it’s a good investment that will grow with her. She can grow up with them and probably play with them for years. Something that she can love for years.

It’s worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grace's birthday dress http://barlowstreet.tumblr.com/post/151486323198/picture-for-the-fic-under-the-read-more-because-i
> 
> Picture it a tiny bit more yellow and less green, but otherwise that's it. Although you could picture the skirt more tulle and floofy if you wanted because that would be cute, too, but whatever works. It's yellow and she's adorable. I will also make that link clickable tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot it was Friday. Whoops. Sorry it's a day late!

Stiles gets a week off from school at the end of March. He plans to spend some time with his dad, hang out with Scott for an evening so they can get in some bro time, and above all, spend time basking in his time with Derek and Grace. He’s going to build block castles with Grace and watch her practice walking and snuggle up to her at night when she wakes up.

Also he’s probably going to fuck Derek into the mattress a few times. You know, normal vacation stuff.

That’s all shot to hell the Friday he gets home because Scott has to go do Official Alpha Business. In Oregon.

And asks Derek to come with him.

“I wouldn’t ask except you’re the only born werewolf I know,” Scott says. “I don’t know how to do this stuff. If I do something wrong…”

“I know,” Derek says. “It’s… tradition and conventions. I know. But who am I supposed to leave Grace with?”

“Me.” Stiles sighs, nudging past Scott to get to the coffeemaker. He was upstairs, getting Grace down for her nap, and came in on the tail end of the conversation. He’s definitely going to need coffee for this. “I’m on break all week. She knows me better than probably anyone besides Derek. I know her routines. Who else?”

Derek frowns, rubbing the back of his neck. “You don’t have to–”

“It’s not that I don’t want to be with her,” Stiles interrupts. “I love spending time with her and I’m always going to be here for her. I was just looking forward to spending time with both of you.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott says and he sounds miserable. “If it was just me, I wouldn’t ask, but it’s not. It’s more important.”

Stiles pours himself a cup of coffee. “No, I know.”

And he does. He knows that it’s about keeping Grace safe. It’s about protecting their territory and all the people that Scott has collected over the years. It’s about Scott’s mom and Stiles’ dad and Stiles himself. He knows that. But, just like when he was seven and he knew what his dad did was to protect people, it doesn’t mean he’s entirely happy with it.

It’s also the first time Grace has been left alone with anyone for more than a few hours.

“How long?” he asks.

 

 

 

“Three days,” Stiles reminds Derek. “I’m going to put her to bed pretty much as soon as you leave. Then it’s just three days and two nights and you’ll be home right around now on Wednesday. It’ll be okay.”

Derek swallows. “I know. You can call me whenever, okay? Nobody will care. Kids are important to us. Top priority. And you and Grace are top priority for me.”

“I know.”

“And keep someone with you at all times,” Derek reminds him for the six or seven _hundredth_ time. They’re… well, they’re vulnerable without the alpha of the territory. They have allies and enough of a reputation that nobody _should_ risk trying anything, but better safe than sorry, especially with Derek gone, too.

It’s just enough of a risk that Cora flew in to stay with them while Derek’s gone, so there’s a Hale in town… and partially to ease Derek’s mind. Nothing’s happened for years and this is just – it’s posturing and politics. But tell Derek not to worry about leaving his baby alone with someone else for more than a couple hours for the first time. Stiles dares you.

“Cora will be here,” Stiles says, rubbing his hand up and down Derek’s arm. “And Allison, too. And I know Scott’s going to have someone in a car across the street looking like they’re staking the joint out to make himself feel better. Grace will be the safest baby since George and Charlotte.”

“You’re too invested in British royalty.” Derek cups a hand against Stiles’ jaw, thumb moving gently against his skin. It's totally sappy, and Stiles wishes they could stay like this for hours. “I need you safe, too. Both of you need to be safe.”

“We will be,” Stiles promises.

Stiles picks Grace up when it’s time to say goodbye. They thought about having Derek leave while she was distracted, but the internet and Derek’s overflowing shelf of parenting books both say that could make her feel abandoned and that’s the last thing either of them want.

“Okay,” Derek says, his voice going hoarse for a second before he clears his throat. He cups Grace’s head in his palm to try and catch her attention. “You be good for Stiles. He – you – I’ll be home in three days. I love you.”

Then there’s some baby squishing – and some Stiles squishing, too.

“I’ll text you as soon as she’s asleep,” Stiles says against Derek’s jaw. “You’re gonna miss your flight if you don’t get going.”

“Yeah.” Derek pulls back enough to kiss Grace’s temple. “Yeah, I know. Bye, Grace.”

Grace and Stiles play for a bit with her blocks. Stiles spends a lot of nights with them and it’s not completely unusual for him and Grace to spend the time after dinner like this when they have some time to fill. Except Derek is usually there. And Grace keeps looking around, pausing to frown for a moment before Stiles distracts her again.

Bath time is a little weird. Stiles makes sure to do everything the way she’s used to. Bath toys, ladybug bath glove, snuggles in the towel and baby lotion massages. He puts her in her favourite pajamas and makes sure that her room is right when they read a book and she has her night time bottle. Through all if it, Grace is… quiet. She’s not babbling the way she normally does and she takes longer to fall asleep. Stiles rocks her a little longer than Derek usually does so she’s almost completely asleep when he puts her in her crib.

The first night is going to be the easiest, though, because Derek has only been gone a couple hours and she’s done that before, although never at night. That’s why they planned it like this, though, so Scott and Derek could get the travelling out of the way and crash when they got to the hotel, then get some the more casual stuff done early in the day tomorrow, instead of handling introductions when they were both exhausted and overwhelmed by travel.

Speaking of, he has a probably very anxious werewolf to text.

 

 

Grace wakes up in the middle of the night. She still usually does, but she cries more than usual tonight, clinging tight to Stiles when he picks her up like she knows something is different. He takes her back to Derek’s bed, since they almost always end up with Grace with them. He’s trying not to do anything differently while Derek’s gone. Dealing with him not being there is enough of a change.

He spends a lot longer than usual once they’re back in bed rubbing her back and humming lullabies he only half-remembers his mom singing him when he was a kid. His Polish is terrible, but Grace seems to like them, and… it reminds him of his mom. It hurts less to remember these days. 

Stiles wakes up to Grace patting his face. When he opens his eyes, she frowns down at him. “Hi?”

“Hi, baby,” he replies, yawning.

She looks around, then back at him. “ _Hi_.”

“Oh.” Shit. Stiles pushes himself up on his elbow, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “Hi – Derek – Daddy went away for a couple days. He’ll be back before you know it, I promise.”

“Hi,” she says sadly.

Time for breakfast.

She does fine with the bottle she always gets in the morning while they make breakfast, but she picks at her breakfast, even the cantaloupe. And usually she loves everything and anything orange.

“Oh, baby,” Stiles says, sighing.

Cora stumbles downstairs fluffy-haired and bleary-eyed while Stiles is wiping jam off Grace’s face. She stops in the doorway, stretching and yawning. The lions on her pajama pants are a nice touch, really. He seriously needs to start a photo album of Hales in their pajamas.

“Coffee’s in the pot, there’s bagels next to the toaster. Eggs in the fridge, fruit salad in the green Tupperware container.” Stiles lifts Grace onto his hip. “I’m going to go get the rainstorm here dressed.”

“Rainstorm?” Cora asks groggily.

“Teething,” Stiles says. “She tends to leak. Often on me. So she’s my rainstorm.”

“Oh,” Cora manages. “Right. Coffee.”

Stiles snorts, pressing a kiss against Grace’s temple. “Your auntie is not a morning person,” he stage-whispers to Grace.

They spent most of the morning playing. Cora and Allison being there is distracting enough that Grace cheers up a little. Allison has a hell of a lot going on between school and working and hunter business and, while Grace sees her fairly often, it’s not nearly as often as Grace would like. Stiles is half convinced she thinks everyone should be there to play with whenever she wants. And they Skype with Cora regularly, but it’s different with her right there.

So Grace, of course, has to show both of them every single thing she loves. She shows Allison her trucks and makes Cora come check out her blocks – and she has blocks in basically every room because they’re almost guaranteed to entertain her. There’s even a couple of blocks under the bed of their room.

Stiles – well, he sits on the couch and has a cup of coffee. What? She’s enjoying herself. She doesn’t need him to get in her way. Besides, he didn’t exactly sleep amazingly last night and he has a feeling he’s going to need the caffeine.

Cora makes lunch, which ever so slightly shocks Stiles. He’s known her long enough to know she’s not exactly a domestic person. It’s just not who she is.

“Derek and I took cooking classes when I was living with him,” she says, stirring something that smells amazing. “I like cooking. It’s calming. Does Grace still like butternut squash?”

“Pretty much she’ll eat anything orange except orange bell peppers.”

Cora makes a face. “Peppers are nasty. She’s totally got that right.”

Stiles is seriously impressed by the macaroni and cheese Cora makes. It’s got squash in the sauce making it almost the same colour as the Kraft Dinner that Derek despairs over feeding Grace and whole wheat pasta and it tastes like nothing he’s ever tasted before.

“I would marry you if I wasn’t kind of into your brother,” Stiles says as he stabs a pea on a baby fork and hands it to Grace. She likes playing with forks and spoons pretty well – especially the part where she drops them on the floor so someone has to pick them up – and she’ll eat stuff off them if they put it on for her, but she hasn’t connected the two things yet.

“I thought you were going to be my househusband,” Allison says with mock hurt in her voice. “Remember, you said you were going to stay home and have Scott’s babies while he saved puppies and I went out and hunted bad guys?”

Stiles nearly chokes. “I was so very not in my right mind for that!” He’d been _eighteen_ and very, very drunk when he said that. It’d seemed like a good plan at the time. “And neither were you. How do you even remember that?”

“I’m magic,” Allison says loftily. “Don’t you remember saying that?”

It was his first year of being away at school, okay? He was lonely and desperately single and also considering he was completely sincere in planning on birthing Scott’s kids, he doesn’t think he really needs to defend his drunk self.

Stiles shoots a dark look at both of them, and then looks at Grace. “You are the only one here who is not evil.”

Grace throws her fork on the floor.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel a little bad I'm making you guys wait for Derek to come home, too. Hopefully you enjoy the Stiles and Grace time!

In the afternoon, Stiles takes Grace to the children’s gym group that she goes to every Monday afternoon. It’s supposed to be a parent/baby class, but honestly, it’s him, one other guy who’s there with his nephew, and a whole bunch of moms. There are lots of questions about Derek, and Stiles is pretty sure Grace is judging him a little for not quite keeping up with her.

But she seems to have fun. She conks out completely in the car on the drive home and doesn’t wake up at all when he puts her down for her afternoon nap. He settles down in Derek’s room while she’s napping with his laptop and phone. It’s not that he doesn’t love Cora and Allison like sisters. He does. It’s just… well, he misses Derek, too, okay?

“Do you have time to talk?” he asks when Derek answers his phone.

There’s a sound like a door closing. “I’m in a hotel full of werewolves including _Scott_ and you’re in a house with my daughter, Allison Argent, and my little sister. We’re not having phone sex.”

Stiles laughs, more amused than he cares to admit at the disgusted tone of Derek’s voice when he mentions Scott. “Man, dirty mind much? I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Sure you did,” Derek says, then his voice goes more serious. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we’re all fine.” Stiles flops back against the pillows, his feet tucked under the comforter. The bed smells like Derek, like them both. Stiles aches, and sighs. “We’re missing you a bit over here. She woke up asking for you. She’s eating okay. We had fun at baby gym and she’s out like a light right now. You wanna Skype with her later?”

“Sure.” Derek clears his throat. “I miss her, too. And you, but it’s…”

“I’ve left before,” Stiles says. “You and her have been together for a year. Her whole life.”

“Give her extra hugs and kisses for me, okay?”

Skyping with Derek is good. Stiles thinks – hopes it helps her realize he didn’t just disappear off the face of the planet. They talk and Derek “reads” her a book. He’s pretty much got the Very Hungry Caterpillar memorized and Stiles only sees him checking the digital copy he sent over a couple times while Grace pokes her fingers into the holes in the pages of their copy.

“I love you,” Derek says to her when it’s time for him to go. They distract her playing with Cora and her blocks on the other side of the living room, and Stiles puts the laptop away so she doesn’t freak out when she realizes Derek’s gone.

She gets fussy at dinner. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s stuff she usually likes. She barely eats her chicken, ignores the potatoes Stiles put on her plate and _flings_ her broccoli at him. And he knows she’s not a great fan of it, but normally she either eats it anyways or ignores it.

“Okay, you’re done,” he says and takes her plate away. He wipes her down despite her protests and sets her in the corner with her toys to play while they finish eating. She does, a little too well, and he’s considering checking one of Derek’s parenting books to see if a one year old can ignore you when she does something he can’t actually see and bursts into hysterical tears.

Stiles pushes his plate away and goes over to pick her up. She holds out a finger with the tiniest dot of a scratch on it.

He rocks her gently against him as he walks them to the bathroom. When she’s still crying but less hysterical, he sits her down on the bathroom counter and gets out the Grace-sized first aid kit. They have multiple bigger ones, after everything they've gone though, but this is better for minor things. Future scraped knees, and other normal childhood bumps and bruises. Less scary for her that way.

Stiles dabs a damp cotton ball against her finger – not that he thinks the microscratch really needs cleaning, but when she’s older and her hurts do need to be cleaned, it'll help to have established the pattern so she knows it’s not so bad – and then puts a Batman band-aid on her finger. Then, of course, he kisses it to make it all better and picks her back up. She still hasn’t completely stopped crying yet and Stiles isn’t kidding himself why. It’s not about the scratch.

When she calms down, she doesn’t seem to want to let him go so he finishes his dinner with her in his lap. He’s gotten better at eating one-handed lately and he only drops a piece of carrot on her head once.

She needs a bath anyways.

 

 

 

“C’mon, Gracie, work with me here.” Stiles groans and sits her down again when she pulls herself up. “I know, standing and walking are awesome and you’re getting good at them both. But you’re going to fall and get hurt and then Stiles is going to cry and Derek will never leave us alone again.”

“Hi?” Grace asks plaintively.

“Hi will be home in a couple days,” Stiles says for what seems like the hundredth time and then… and then he thinks about it instead of just saying it. “Huh… except you don’t really have any idea what I mean when I say that, do you, Gracie girl?”

Stiles sits Grace down – again – and quickly scrubs her down. She’s _not_ happy with him for washing her hair and baby massage time turns into naked baby running through the upstairs _Cora why did you open the bathroom door_ time. He ends up chasing Grace into their bedroom and tossing her gently onto the bed and blowing raspberries into her stomach until she laughs.

Stiles pops a diaper onto Grace and dresses her in one of her favourite pairs of pajamas. Then he picks her up, settling her on his hip, and takes her back downstairs.

“Sounds like you’re having some fun up there,” Allison says from where she’s making herself a mug of tea.

“Yeah, somebody didn’t know that you don’t open the bathroom door when the baby is naked,” Stiles replies, shooting a grin over his shoulder at Cora. She sticks her tongue out at him.

Stiles sets Grace down into her high chair and puts a bib on her, then gets together some of her fruit salad and some cheese. Normally she doesn’t need a snack after dinner since she goes to bed so early, but she didn’t eat even close to enough and she’ll wake up if she gets hungry in the middle of the night. _Stiles_ still wakes up hungry in the middle of the night and he’s not growing like a weed. Besides, it’ll keep her busy.

“Back in a minute,” he says to Cora and Allison and heads back upstairs to Derek’s office. He grabs a pack of markers and some paper and bring it back downstairs, setting himself up with them at the kitchen table.

“What are you doing?” Cora asks.

“Had an idea,” Stiles says with the cap of a marker in his teeth.

He draws a chart with four squares, nice thick lines. In bright purple because why not. He writes the day of the week at the top of each square and then puts a big number in each box in black. He adds a blue frowny face in the corner of the first box, and crosses it off with an orange marker. In the last box, he draws another little face next to the four and pointedly ignores Allison’s snickering.

When Grace is finished her snack, Stiles cleans her face and hands and then drops back into his seat with her in his lap. He pulls the chart close to them and points at the first square.

“This was yesterday,” he says, tapping a finger against it. “This is today, and this is tomorrow.”

“Hi,” Grace says, slapping her hand against the last square where there’s a small face drawn with bushy black hair and slightly comical eyebrows. What? Stiles never claimed to be an artist.

“Yeah, that’s the day after tomorrow when Hi comes home,” Stiles says.

Cora is actually giggling behind him. “When Hi comes home?”

Stiles shoots a glare at her. “You shush. She knows who I’m talking about when I say it. 'Dad' is a new thing around here and I never know if she’s entirely convinced we’re talking about the same person when I say it.”

He uncaps the orange marker and wraps Grace’s hand around it. Carefully, he guides her hand into drawing a big X over the second day. She’s probably too young to really understand it, but it can’t hurt, right?

“See, Gracie girl?” he says, pointing at the two empty squares. “Only two more days.”

 

 

 

The next day is rough. Grace sleeps badly, fussing and waking Stiles up as often as she wakes herself up. He ends up crashing on the couch during her morning nap and by lunchtime, they’re both grumpy and Cora’s one sarcastic remark away from killing Stiles. Allison is probably the only reason she hasn’t, honestly, because she’d be a witness.

“Okay, seriously, we all need to get out of this house,” Cora finally says. “I’ll go pack lunch. You go pack the kid. We’ll go to the park.”

After making a face at her over Grace’s head, Stiles carries Grace upstairs and grabs a change of clothing. She’s in a t-shirt and a diaper and nothing else. It wasn’t worth it to fight her on it this morning. And not really a big deal, either, since they hadn’t been going anywhere. But _so_ not worth it.

“Okay, now, how about we try some pants. You can’t go down the slide without them. You stick really badly and get slide burn,” he says, setting her down on the change table.  It’s harder for her to escape when he puts her on the table, which is her new favourite trick when they’re trying to get her dressed. “And I’m sorry but you do need to wear socks. Teenagers with questionable ethics hang out at parks and your feet are far too delicate to be stepping on the junk they drop.”

She pouts about the socks.

“I’m gonna make you wear shoes, too,” Stiles says, waggling his eyebrows dramatically at her. “You can hate me until you’re a teenager, but you’ll thank me when you don’t have tetanus.”

Grace pouts a little harder. Stiles can’t _wait_ until she starts being able to tell them no. It’s gonna be awesome.

And he means that completely sincerely.

Cora makes sandwiches and stuff, and packs Grace her own special little lunchbox. She takes the lid off and puts it back on about six times before actually eating anything, but once she gets into it, she eats without the fussing of the last couple days.

It’s not – Stiles really hates it when she doesn’t want to eat. On one hand, he wants to make sure she’s getting enough food. On the other hand, he wouldn't  _ever_ try to force her to eat because that’s so not the way to build a healthy relationship with food. Stiles worries, basically. He’s talked enough with both Derek and his own dad to know that’s basically a part of signing up for this so, weirdly, he doesn’t worry so much about his worrying.

She gets done eating before any of them, despite how determined she is to pick up each and every piece of food on her own without any help from anyone. Tiny stomachs will do that for you. Stiles tides her over with a few blocks he tossed into the diaper bag – seriously, best toy ever – but they are at the park and she’s only little. She can’t be patient forever.

“Okay, give me a minute and we’ll go play,” Stiles says to her when she tries to escape for the second time and starts to shove the last half of his sandwich into his mouth all at once.

Cora puts down her plate and dusts her hands off. “I’ve got it. C’mere, squirt, Auntie Cora will show you all the cool things to do.”

“You rock.” When she heads off with Grace, Stiles moves into her place so he can keep an eye on them. “I have never in my life been so exhausted, Allison.”

Allison pats his knee. “You’re doing great. She really loves you.”

“I love her,” Stiles replies. “She’s amazing and I want to do this for the rest of my life, I really do, but Allison, I really don’t ever want to be a single parent. It’s _hard_ and Derek is amazing for doing this on his own. I like being a team with him, you know? We work good together.”

Allison smiles at him, her dimples flashing. “We’ve all known that for a long time, Stiles.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a serious note, I just want to thank you guys so much for reading this, and for all your lovely comments, and I also want to wish everyone who is celebrating a happy and safe Halloween weekend. Whatever you're doing, take care of yourselves.

“C’mon, Gracie girl,” Stiles murmurs, rubbing her back as she screams. This isn’t even crying, it’s just screaming. She’s _pissed_ at him. He’s quite convinced of this. And probably just as unhappy about it as he is, his poor girl. “I _know_ , okay? I know. C’mon, baby girl, settle down for me.”

Stiles nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears the knock.

“Sorry,” he says when Cora opens the door. “She’s angry at me because I’m not Derek.”

“Shut up and lie down,” Cora says, her voice sleep rough. “I already talked to him, skootch.”

A moment later, she crawls in on what’s usually Stiles’ side. He’s been sleeping on Derek’s side while he’s gone. Partly because it’s on the outside of the room and he feels better with him between Grace and the door, and partly because it smells like Derek.

“If she turns out to be like us, she’s going to be feeling the pack bond,” Cora says as she settles down on the other side of Grace. “Her alpha’s gone, too. If she’s feeling it, it’s going to be extra hard on her because she’s so little. Also, you’re lucky I managed to talk Derek down because he was completely ready to fly home on the next flight out when he heard her. I had to promise to call back in half an hour if she was still upset and then hang up on him.”

Stiles snorts, rubbing Grace’s stomach as she grouses. It’s not sleeping and he hates that she’s still upset, but it’s not screaming anymore, at least. This was a good idea. Probably Derek's, come to think of it, from something they did when they were young. “Did you wake him up?”

“Not really,” Cora says. “Apparently he’s not sleeping so well away from home, either. You all are saps, by the way.” She clears her throat. “The squirt’s my niece. I couldn’t listen to her be miserable like that.”

“Sap,” Stiles whispers into the darkness.

 

 

 

In the morning, Stiles sticks the chart to the fridge with magnets – big ones because Derek doesn’t keep the little ones in the house anymore. Choking hazard and apparently some really bad things can happen when little kids swallow magnets. Derek saw some weird docudrama show on TLC and threw out every magnet that wasn’t the large sheet kind before Grace even started crawling.

While he's still gettingher bottle ready, Grace walks up to the fridge and pats her hand against the calendar.

“Hi?” she says to it.                                       

“He’ll be home tonight,” Stiles says cheerfully. “We’ll do some really fun stuff today so waiting not’s so hard.”

If there's anyone who knows about missing Derek, it's Stiles. The last day of waiting, the anticipation of it being so close to seeing him again, is the worst. Stiles is a wreck those days.

They need kisses, then, he decides.

Cora wakes up and shoves him out of the kitchen as he’s poking around in the fridge. He’s gotten better at scrambling eggs… or at least scrambling them so that Grace will eat them. Derek usually just shakes his head when he offers and wisely doesn't comment. 

“You think Grace would eat an omelette?” Cora asks. “Maybe with some of the leftover vegetables from dinner?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles says honestly. “I’m not even close to good at cooking and Derek can’t make them. You can try? She likes eggs and she likes most vegetables.” He grins. “I like ham and Swiss.”

“Spinach?” Allison asks, stumbling a little into the kitchen doorframe. She's maybe half awake, if that. Stiles has spent enough time sleeping on Scott and Allison's couches over the years that he knows she's got a fair way to go before getting the rest of the way.

“There’s some of those little ones in the crisper,” Stiles says, moving to get ingredients out of the fridge. The least he can do is help get stuff out. “We have Swiss, cheddar, mozzarella and string cheese. And there’s there ham… here’s those veggies, Cora.”

“Got any mushrooms?”

“Uuum.” Stiles roots through the crisper until he finds one slightly sad little pack of mushrooms. Derek's the only real fan of those in the house. “Here you go.”

“I also am not seeing a cup of coffee here,” Cora says as she sets up pans. “If there’s not one in front of me in approximately five minutes, I might decide to undercook somebody’s eggs and give them salmonella.”

Stiles has to laugh at that. She's such a Hale, through and through, and he can't deny his fondness for them. He picks Grace up from where she’s been clinging to his leg, gives her a squeeze and brings her over to Cora for some kisses.

“You do leak some, huh, don’t you, squirt?” Cora says, her nose squinched up. She’s smiling though and lets Grace smooch up on her until she’s satisfied. Then he hands Grace to Allison while he makes coffee because the baby and hot coffee are not a combination his heart can handle this early in the morning.

“You want coffee, Allie A?” he asks as he pours Cora’s cup. When he gets no response, he glances over his shoulder at her. “Allison?”

She’s staring at Grace, who’s playing with the bracelet on Allison’s wrist like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. “Um,” Allison says, blinking slowly. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

As he turns back to the coffeemaker, Stiles has to hide a smile. He’s getting a niggly feeling in the back of his head that while Grace might be the first baby among them, she might not be the only baby in a few years.

Not be presumptuous or anything. He just knows that walloped look.

 

 

“You have to promise not to eat too much of it, okay?” he says to Grace. “I swear it doesn’t taste good. Okay?”

She’s currently on the kitchen floor wearing nothing but a diaper and a… well, a frown. A very Hale-worthy frown at that. God, she looks so much like Derek sometimes that he just aches with it. And even Cora as a baby. They have the same eyes, and all of them have those eyebrows.

“You guys ready?” he asks Cora and Allison. “I expect many pictures to be taken and _nobody_ to let the naked paint covered baby run away.”

Cora rolls her eyes.

“Let’s do this thing.” Stiles snaps open the first bottle of finger paint. “Look, yellow!” he says as he squirts a little bit onto a paper plate. “Wanna paint with some yellow, Grace?”

She’s a little hesitant so he dips his fingers in and starts to paint on the canvas closest to him. He could have just gotten one, but they came in a two pack, so he figures this way he can show her how it works. No matter how ridiculous he looks doing so.

“Look, I’m going to make a sun,” he says, sketching a roughly round shape onto the canvas with his fingers. “The sun is yellow. You know some other yellow things? Lemons. Eggs. Bananas. We like yellow, huh?”

It feels silly narrating, but apparently that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Still frowning, Grace gets her fingers into the paint. She spends a few minutes just squishing her hand around while Stiles adds rays to his sun. Then she pats her hand down against the canvas, leaving a nice bright yellow smudge. And she immediately freezes, looking up at Stiles like she’s worried she did something wrong.

“Good job!” he praises and, slowly, she smiles. Yeah, this is going to be fun.

When she starts to get bored, Stiles adds some red to the plate. “Let’s use some red now. Yellow and red mix together and make orange. You love orange, don’t you?” He draws a few red rays onto his sun. “Apples are a red thing. So are strawberries and watermelon and your favourite shoes.”

She eats the red. Probably all the food talk. He lets her, for a moment, and when she realizes he’s not reacting – and probably how gross the paint tastes – it’s easy to get her focus back onto the painting and not the eating.

“How about some blue?” he asks a few minutes later. He puts some blue onto the other side of the plate and uses it to paint some birds onto his picture. Well. They’re more like M’s but he’s calling them birds. “Blue is an awesome colour. Like blueberry pancakes and blue birds and the sky. And sometimes like your dad’s eyes.”

Grace decides to explore painting herself with the blue. She has little blue handprints all over her legs when he puts some green onto the plate.

“Let’s do a little green,” he says. He paints some hasty grass onto his canvas and then breaks into helpless laughter when Grace plants both hands onto the paper plate. “Is the green squishy? Like avocado? And grass and your green kitty?”

She has some fun squishing the paint around both on the plate and the canvas, and he leaves her be while he wipes his own hands clean. It’s clear enough when she’s done. She  tries to flip the plate over and throw paint everywhere, and doesn’t seem to be having much fun with it.

“Are we ready?” Stiles mutters as he picks up the towel. Thank God that Grace is still slow to stand up because if she was quick enough to run away, the whole house would be covered in paint before he got her wrapped in the towel.

It’s not quite noon yet so he’s not going to give her a full bath, but he gets her in the tub and lets her sit on the towel while he wipes her down with a warm washcloth so he doesn’t have to worry about her running away.

He actually has to change her diaper to get all the paint off.

“I’m actually kind of impressed with you right now,” he says as he gently strokes the paint from her hair. “Also I’m a little terrified about the kinds of messes you’re going to torture us with when you get older, but impressed nonetheless.”

“Ti,” she says with a grin.

Stiles has to pause for a moment. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s me.”

 

 

 

After lunch, Stiles takes Grace to the library for her Toddler Time program. And again, he gets questions about where Derek is – and a couple comments along the lines of “so _you’re_ the boyfriend” that make him blush a little. For somebody who’s as… well, frankly, leaning towards anti-social as Derek is, the moms at Grace’s things sure do like him. He’s surprised that Derek talks about him, though.

Having a dozen under-two year olds in one room is kind of chaotic. Stiles is a little amazed by the librarian who manages to keep them in check and vaguely doing the same thing at once.

There’s lots of songs and fingerplays which apparently isn’t a dirty thing and for two books, Grace crawls into his lap and snuggles up against him. She’s a good book listener for her age. She’s also a little clingier than she usually is. It partly feels like she’s coming back just check to make sure he’s still there. But Toddler Time is a lot easier on him than baby gym. Apparently he’s out of shape.

Afterwards, there’s a little bit of time while the kids play with some toys from bins in the corner of the room and kind of sort of each other – kids this age aren’t great at playing with each other so much as next to each other, but man is it ever cute watching them anyways, Stiles thinks – and the parents talk to each other and the librarian.

Stiles keeps an eye on where Grace is playing with a stack of blocks while he packs up the honestly kind of ridiculous amount of stuff Grace travels with and manages to get into for a half hour program. Seriously, exactly why did she decide that she needed to take out three diapers and a bottle of sunblock while he was struggling to get the lid off her snack bowl?

And then she grabs a block out of some poor kid’s hand and the other kid bursts into tears.

“Grace Hale!” Stiles says in shock, going over to her. He gives the block back to the kid who is still just _wailing_ , oh, dear God, and picks Grace up. “That was so not cool, Gracie girl.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” one of the moms says to the little boy who’s _still_ crying. She picks him up when it’s clear that he’s not going to stop and pats his back. She’s really pretty. Young, maybe a little older than Stiles, with smooth black hair and a quick smile. “It’s almost naptime for us.”

“I’m so sorry,” Stiles blurts.

The woman shakes her head. “No, don’t worry. _Somebody_ ,” she says, pointing briefly at her kid, “Gets a little sensitive when he needs a nap.”

Stiles frowns at Grace. “Somebody here isn’t so good at the sharing yet.”

“Yeah, we’re still working on that, too,” she says with a snort. “Hi, I’m Kira. You’re Derek’s Stiles, right?”

“Apparently,” Stiles says with a grin. “Didn’t know he talked about me so much. Hi.”

They move out of the way of the small children who desperately want the toys they’re in front of and Stiles goes back to packing up Grace’s bag, this time one handed.

“So is Derek okay?” Kira asks.

“Oh, yeah.” Stiles pauses with a rubber duck in his hand. “Seriously, how did you even… this was in the tub last night, when did you get this in the bag?” She’s a year old. They basically never leave her unsupervised. _How?_ “Uh, no, he’s fine. He just had to go away for business a couple days.”

“Gotcha. Let him know we missed him, okay?”

He’s agreeing as Cora walks up to them. “Hey, loser, you ready to go?”

Stiles takes a moment to stare at her. It’s nice she takes the effort to make good first  impressions. “Just about.” He stands back up, swinging Grace’s diaper bag over his other shoulder. “This is Cora, Derek’s sister and,” as Allison joins them, “Allison, my sister-in-law.”

Allison raises an eyebrow at him, but he shrugs. Scott’s his brother and she’s as good as his sister because of that, as far as Stiles is concerned.

Plus it’s a lot easier to explain this way than weird werewolf relationships.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Kira says. “Derek talks about you all the time. Especially you, Stiles.”

“Not a word,” Stiles immediately says to Cora.

“Too late.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit short, but next week is the last one, so I want to stretch this out a little longer and tease you guys just a tiny bit more! ;)

Cora elbows Stiles in the ribs. He yelps, which amuses her far too much in his opinion. “Hey, he’s about five minutes away.”

Stiles jolts to his feet, scooping Grace up and taking her into the kitchen. He takes the chart off the fridge and sets it on the counter. Then he carefully – because she so doesn’t need to wear the orange marker – guides her hand to cross off the last box.

Grace pats the face when he takes the marker out of her hand. “Hi?”

“Yeah, honey, he’ll be here real quick.”

Stiles has never seen a grown man peek around the edge of a door so shyly. Seriously, this is just ridiculous and Stile is going to make fun of Derek as soon as he stops aching at the look on Derek’s face.

“Hey,” he says, his throat tight.

“Hey,” Derek says, his fingers tight on the edge of the door, then, softer, at Grace, “Hi, Grace.”

“You gonna come in here any time soon?” Stiles asks and it should be sarcastic, but his voice comes out wrong, too soft.

Derek moves a little too fast to come off entirely human. The next thing Stiles knows, he’s being completely squished by Derek. Not that he’s complaining because… yeah, the squishing is not bad at all. There is a slight chance that he's missed Derek almost as much as Grace has. It really isn't his fault, though. This is how things are supposed to be.

“Hi,” Stiles says against Derek’s shoulder.

“Hey. I missed you guys.” Derek pulls back enough to reach his hands out to take Grace.

She immediately hides her face in Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles has never seen Derek looks so devastated.

“It’s normal for kids to do this,” Stiles says, patting Grace’s back. “She missed you _so_ badly, but you’re here now, so she’s mad at you for leaving and she doesn’t have words to express that she missed you.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Where’d you read that?”

“Man, you have a whole shelf of parenting books and I have access to the internet,” Stiles says with a grin. Then he reaches over and cups his hand around Derek’s elbow, gently running his hand up and down his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. It’s not your fault. C’mere.” Derek leans forward and kisses him, slow and firm. “Sorry we’re late. I wanted to get home before dinner, but our flight was late.”

“It’s okay. Just glad you’re home.” Stiles cleans his throat and pats Derek firmly on the chest. Maybe he’s blushing a little. They’re not usually into the PDA thing. Public kisses are kind of a novelty around here. “We really did miss you, big guy.”

Allison says goodnight not long after. Stiles knows she wants to see Scott, has been quietly worrying about him the entire time he was gone, and she grins and honestly looks all of seventeen when she rushes to her car. Cora hugs Derek for a minute, punches him on the shoulder, and goes into the living room to watch TV while very obviously giving them some time alone.

“We made you something,” Stiles says, and catches Derek’s wrist. He drags him over to the kitchen table where Grace’s painting is displayed. He wrote her name and age and the date in the corner once the paint dried. “Also, we took tons of pictures of her covered in paint. I’ll show you later.”

Derek swallows, leans over to press a kiss against the back of Grace’s head. She’s still hiding, pouting, but she lets him. “It’s beautiful.”

“We probably should get this one in the bath,” Stiles says, when he can’t help noticing how late it’s getting. He’s been trying to keep Grace on her normal schedule as much as possible. “Do you want to or do you want me to handle it for now?”

Derek swallows. “Would you?”

Stiles squeezes his arm and starts to head to the stairs. As soon as Grace looks up and realizes where they’re going, she _screeches_ right into his ear.

“What the what?” he blurts, stopping in his tracks to stare at her. “Why, why are we screaming?”

Grace pouts at him. “Hi,” she says, and Stiles has never in her life thought she reminded him more of Derek. She’s going to be such a stubborn girl when she gets older, just like her stubborn, hard-headed daddy.

It’s no wonder Stiles loves her so much.

“Guess you’re coming, too,” he says to Derek. “ _Hales_.”

Grace is pouty through her whole bath routine. Even pausing during baby massage time to blow raspberries against her tummy only gets a small smile. It’s not normal for her and Derek looks kind of pathetic, honestly. Derek’s usually the one who does the bath ritual and Stiles just hangs around spending time with them, not the other way around.

When it’s time for a book and bottle, Stiles sits down in the rocking chair with Grace on his lap and pats the ottoman. “Come read us a story, Derek.”

Stubborn cheerfulness solves all problems, doesn't it?

The crying on the baby monitor wakes Stiles up a few hours later. He fumbles his way out of bed in the dark, bumping into the doorframe and muttering a curse. That’s gonna bruise.

“Hey, sweetie,” he says with a yawn as he picks Grace up. He starts to settle her against him, but she goes stiff all over, crying even harder. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

“ _Hi_ ,” she half-wails.

Stiles pats her back. “Okay, just a minute, we’ll go wake him up.”

“I’m up,” Derek says from the doorway.

And Stiles nearly jumps out his skin. He’s going to sew _bells_ into all of Derek’s clothing, he swears to God, or his heart isn’t going to make it to thirty. Grace, somehow, manages to cry harder from him jumping and he winces. “Well, come take your kid, man. She kind of wants you to hold her.”

Derek moves closer, reaching to brush his fingers through Stiles’ hair. It’s an absent, soothing gesture for both of them, and Stiles leans into it without thought. “Sorry I made you wake up. I just… I didn’t think she’d want me to get her, for a minute, and you got up while I was arguing with myself.”

“S’okay,” Stiles mumbles and pretty much dumps Grace into Derek’s arms. Who is he to deny the lady what she wants? “You got this,” he says, kissing her head as she clings to Derek. “I’m going back to bed. Cuddles would be okay.”

“We’ll be there in a couple minutes,” Derek says, smiling just a little at him.

Stiles flops down onto the sheets as soon as he finds the bed – and, yes, it takes him a minute but it’s dark, okay?

“Hey, baby girl,” Derek’s voice says over the monitor a few seconds later and he’s pretty sure Derek has forgotten that Stiles can hear him. Usually it’s the other way around. “Been a hard couple days, huh? You still mad at me?” For a few minutes, there’s not a lot of noise besides Derek’s gentle shushing sounds, then, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t like this much either.”

Stiles shakes his head against the pillow. Understatement of the century, he’s pretty sure.

After a few minutes, Grace settles down to the occasional hiccupping whimper.

“Hi, Grace,” Derek whispers so softly Stiles can barely hear him.

“Hi, Daddy,” Grace says tearfully.

There’s a possibility that both his people need to be cuddled extra well when they get back in bed.

 

 

 

Stiles is the first one awake. Derek’s exhausted from the travel. It’s hard on werewolves, with all the overwhelming scents and sounds, especially one like Derek who was born this way and doesn’t remember any different. And Grace is probably exhausted, too, from missing him.

In any case, Derek is curled up on his side around Grace, his hand on her stomach. His face is soft with sleep, his mouth lax, and Stiles falls a little more in love with him each time he looks at him.

Grace is sacked out on her back, starfishing in a way that’s going to be really annoying when she’s a little bit bigger – seriously, he doesn’t understand how a very small person takes up so very much room – and her thumb in her mouth. She hasn’t been doing that very long and Stiles has already had to talk Derek out of freaking out over it.

He presses a kiss against her head, inhaling the uniquely ‘baby’ scent that she has, and settles his hand into place over Derek’s. They can stay in bed a little longer, Stiles thinks. There’s nothing more important than this right now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this chunk!
> 
> Thank you all so much for all your kind comments and kudos and just for reading. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and don't worry - this is far from over!

Stiles graduates in May. He’s weirdly nervous, figures he shouldn’t be considering he did once already. He knows how this goes. Maybe it’s different because of that whole “now he needs to actually start being a grown-up” thing. His dad and Melissa and Scott come up for the ceremony, but he told Derek that he understands how hard it is to travel with a toddler and his dad will totally take a million pictures and possibly video it, so he shouldn't worry about it.

He takes everyone out for breakfast … and by takes, he means drives because he’s flat broke, okay? It’s the thought that counts. He orders way too much food and then ends up making himself nervous and loses his appetite. Scott is kind enough to pat his head… and eat his pancakes. It's very selfless of him.

Possibly Stiles has a very small panic attack in his dorm room as he’s getting ready that Scott also has to talk him down from. It’s not that he doesn’t _want_ to graduate or anything. He does. But he has no job prospects, no idea what he’s actually going to do, a man he’s in kind of desperately in love with, and a baby he wants to raise with said man. And it’s what he wants more than anything, but he’s also desperately afraid that he’ll mess it up.

He wouldn’t be able to handle losing this.

Stiles starts shaking right as the ceremony starts and it’s stupid, but the dude next to him kind of looks like he’s gonna puke so maybe he’s not the only nervous one. S is a stupid letter for your last name to start with, Stiles decides as A-R goes up on stage. It’s way too low in the alphabet. He’s going back to Bilinski.

Biles Bilinski, he thinks, and has to suppress a hysterical giggle.

Then they _finally_ call his name and he focuses on his feet to keep from tripping up the stairs. He glances over to find his dad in the audience and goes still, a smile creeping over his face.

Because sitting next to his dad, wearing a tie that looks so awkward on him it’s like it personally offended him, is Derek, with Grace in his lap.

Stiles is pretty sure he’s never been shocked and happy in his life.

“I can’t believe you drove three hours with a one year old,” he says after the ceremony, leaning down to kiss Grace. She’s dressed up all fancy, wearing the prettiest pink dress with roses all over the top and a matching flower headband. And one little pink flowery sandal. He catches her bare foot in his hand and jiggles it gently. “Where’d your other shoe go, Gracie girl?”

“It’s in my pocket,” Derek says, rolling his eyes over her head as she reaches her arms up to Stiles. “She decided she hated just the right shoe today.”

Stiles laughs and takes Grace before she leans herself right out of Derek’s grip. “That’s my girl. I can’t believe you’re both here.”

“You think we’d miss this?” Derek asks, teasing, except it’s not. “We’re proud of you, idiot. Congratulations.”

Stiles can’t stop grinning, unable to stop himself from giving Grace a squish. He’s missed her so much, and she’s growing way too fast. It’s been too long since the last time he got hug and kiss and squish and cuddle her. A moment later, he steps up close in front of Derek. “Can we maybe do a little PDA?”

Derek _blushes_ , which is too damn endearing for his own good, and leans in to brush a hello kiss over Stiles’ mouth. It’s short, but nice, and, really, Stiles isn’t going to full-on make out with anyone in front of his dad. Or make out with Grace’s dad in front of her. That’s just a little weird all around.

Possibly Stiles’ graduation pictures are a little unorthodox. Sure, there’s the pictures of him and his dad with him in his robe and the dumb hat. And there’s ones of him and Scott grinning like idiots. But there’s also one of him with both his dad and Melissa, both with an arm around his shoulders. And then there’s one of him and Derek and he makes Derek pose like a bad prom picture and he’s laughing when the flash goes off. And there’s one of him with everyone, his dad and Melissa and Scott on one side of him, and Derek holding Grace on the other.

But his favourite is probably a toss-up between the one where he’s standing there holding Grace on his hip, her bare foot against his stomach, or the one he didn’t even realize his dad was taking, when Grace got a little overstimulated and started to fuss and he and Derek squished her between them, each of them kissing a cheek until she laughed.

“Think I might frame that one,” his dad says casually when Stiles hands back his camera, the picture still on the display screen. “Put it up on the wall. That okay?”

Stiles nods, hard. The Wall is where his kindergarten picture is, his high school graduation, the picture of him and Scott at his tenth birthday party, the last picture they have of his mom before she got sick. The Wall is important. “Okay with me.”

Derek looks somewhat stunned himself. “Of – of course.”

 

 

 

His dad hands a French fry to Grace. It’s a sweet potato fry, at least, Stiles thinks. They really don’t need the fourteen month old to get too used to French fries. She’ll fill up on delicious, delicious deep-fried potatoes if they’re not careful and not eat anything else.  Besides, his _dad_ doesn’t need to get too used to them, either. Especially not now that Stiles is going to be living in Beacon Hills again.

“Since she’s starting to talk a little more, she’s gonna need to call me something,” his dad says out of the blue. “I don’t think ‘Sheriff’ is gonna cut it.”

Stiles laughs. “Probably not. She might be able to handle ‘John’ pretty soon here.”

His dad smoothly sets Grace’s hat back into place when she tries to rip it off. She’s not entirely into the whole hat thing, but Derek is kind of wildly strict about keeping her from getting too much sun. Besides the hat, she’s also absolutely slathered in baby sunblock – expensive, organic stuff because Derek is a very strange, very overprotective man sometimes.

“That could work,” his dad says, casually. “But I was thinking of something else.”

Stiles frowns with a mouthful of the best hamburger he’s had in weeks. “Like what?”

“Well,” his dad says. Melissa is stifling giggles on his other side, Scott is hiding a grin behind his own burger and Stiles feels like he’s missing the joke. “I was thinking – if it’s alright with you, Derek – maybe she could – we could let her – maybe –”

“You wanna be Grandpa or Papa or something else?” Derek asks, grinning, and Stiles is honestly a little shocked that he says it so easily. Derek and talking about feelsy stuff is not always an easy thing.

His dad looks almost hilariously relieved at not having to say it. “Grandpa. Grandpa sounds good.”

“I’m gonna be Uncle Scott,” Scott declares, his mouth full. “’Cause you and me, dude, we’re brothers.”

Stiles grins. “You know it.”

 

 

 

“I didn’t spring anything on you, did I?” Stiles asks later as he finishes his last minute packing. Grace is napping on his bed, sounded by pillows… with Derek sitting in Stiles’ desk chair next to the bed. “With my dad? I mean, I didn’t know, but…”

“No, I was sort of expecting that. We had a conversation,” Derek says, with a grin. “He came over for coffee. I answered the door holding Grace and he told me he couldn’t threaten me while I was holding her and asked when naptime was.”

“Oh, God.”

“It’s okay.” Derek shakes his head. “We had a good talk. He offered to baby-sit. Got distracted from threatening me playing with her.”

“You two are weird,” Stiles says, throwing the last of his clothes into his duffel bag. “Very weird.”

“Talking to your dad did make me realize something,” Derek says. He reaches over and catches Stiles’ wrist as he passes by. “Move in with us.”

“What?”

Derek rubs his thumb gently over the veins on the underside of Stiles’ wrist. “Move in with me and Grace.” He swallows, bringing Stiles’ palm to his mouth to kiss it. “I love you. And Grace loves you. And you’re a part of our lives and I’d – I’d like it if you were always a part of our lives. If you’d want to have a life with us.”

“I think that’s the most words you’ve ever said all at once to me,” Stiles says and drops himself onto Derek’s lap.

Derek rolls his eyes and he’s making sarcastic eyebrows when Stiles kisses him.

“That’s a yes, by the way,” he says more than a few minutes later. “Yes, you’re totally stuck with me now.”

Living with Derek and Grace isn’t perfect. Derek takes his socks off whenever he comes into the house and leaves them wherever he happens to think of taking them off, then runs out of socks and wonders why he doesn’t have any – and wonders where Grace gets her sock hatred. Grace is shockingly fast and way too curious about everything Stiles unpacks and he almost has a heart attack when she gets a hold of a handful of marbles he has in some random box. They’re not special but she’s on her way to mouthing them when he grabs them out of her hands. Stiles moves a lot of his research stuff into Derek’s office and they end up bickering for most of the evening… and then having angry sex on the office floor.

So maybe that part was pretty good.

But it’s not perfect.

Except for when it is. Like the fact that he wakes up in the morning in bed with Derek and sometimes Grace. She’s sleeping through the night most of the time now, but she usually can be convinced it’s not quite time to get up if they bring her back to bed with them for cuddles for a couple hours. Or the parts where Derek still acts like being allowed to shower in the morning while Stiles handles breakfast is the most amazing thing ever and Stiles is wonderful for doing it. Or the nights when they do bathtime together, quiet and together and soothing, and they feel like… a family.

It’s not perfect, but it kind of is.

 

 

 

This is terrible. This is terrifying. Stiles should never have agreed to this. This might just be the dealbreaker in his and Derek’s relationship.

He grabs Scott’s arm. “Why is everything so _pink_?”

“I don’t know, man.” Scott looks almost as terrified as Stiles. “Probably sexism or something.”

It only takes a few minutes for the sales person to come up to them. Probably they look as out of their depths are they are.

“Can I help you find something?” she asks.

Stiles runs his fingers through his hair. “Uh. My little girl had a growth spurt and needs some new summer clothes. Some t-shirts and some shorts. A couple skirts. Maybe, uh, not quite so much pink.”

The salesperson smiles at him. “I think we can manage that. How old is your daughter?”

“Just about fifteen months,” Stiles says without thinking. Then he has to take a moment to replay the words in his head. He’s never called Grace that before. He’s called her his favourite person, his rainstorm, more recently his boyfriend’s daughter. He’s never called her that before, but it… it feels right.

It feels really, really right.

Stiles enjoys the shopping a little too much. It’s just all so tiny and adorable and way more fun than grown up clothes. He also maybe spends a little more than he expected, but wow, he seriously wants to buy _all the clothes_.

As it is, he ends up with a t-shirt with a crab on it that amuses him a little too much – because her dad is crabby, get it? – also partly because Grace looks like a little ball of sunshine in yellow, and a blue shirt with butterflies on it, a sweet grey shirt with a peacock, and… okay, one pink shirt, but it’s kind of hilariously cute. He get a stripy dress he thinks she’ll be adorable in and that’ll keep her cool when it starts getting really hot, a grey skirt with polka dots, and a couple pairs of shorts.

Derek laughs at him when he gets home with the bag of clothes. “Have fun?”

“I hate you,” Stiles mumbles, shoving the bag at him. “There were a lot of choices and they all would look really cute on her.”

“Why do you think she has a drawer full of very small socks to hate?” Derek asks dryly, pulling clothes out of the bag. He grins at the sunglasses shirt, then pauses with the yellow shirt in his hand. “Why is there a crab on this shirt?”

“Because you’re crabby,” Stiles says, and grins.

Derek takes out the peacock shirt. “Is this ‘cause you’re a dick, then?”

At bathtime that night, Stiles sits on the little step next to the tub, shoulder to shoulder with Derek. There’s probably room enough for them to be not so close, but, really, it’s kind of nice feeling the heat radiating off him, nice to have Derek casually touching his knee here and there, leaning into him, his shoulders shaking when he laughs.

“Hey,” he says carefully.

Derek glances at him. “What’d you break?”

“Nothing!” Stiles pauses. “Well, last week I dropped a weight on Scott’s foot and broke two of his toes, but he healed right up in like ten minutes.”

“Okay. What is it, then?”

Stiles stares at Grace in the tub. She’s focused very intently on covering the side of the bathtub in bath crayon scribbles – those things are the bomb; Stiles occasionally leaves dirty notes for Derek in the shower with them – and frowning so fiercely in concentration that he wants to take a picture of her just to capture the Hale eyebrows.

“What do we…” He swallows. “What’s she going to call me when she gets older? To explain me to her friends or her teachers or whatever?”

Derek presses a slightly damp hand to the back of Stiles’ neck. “If you’re planning on being here for friends and teachers, I think you know already, don’t you? Why are you freaking out? Calm down, we’re fine. You’re okay.”

“I’m nervous,” Stiles admits. “It feels like a big step. But I want… I want to be here. When people ask me about her, I want to say she’s mine.”

“She’s yours,” Derek says softly. “We can – when she’s older she can decide what she wants to call you, yeah? Stiles or something else. But I think – I think she’d like it if you were – if we were her parents.”

“Well,” Stiles says and he’s man enough to admit that he’s maybe a little choked up, “I’d like that, too.”

Grace chooses that moment to spray them both with water.

It’s kind of perfect, really, all things considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wouldn't leave you without [baby clothes!](http://barlowstreet.tumblr.com/post/153090984223/need-a-link-ignore-this-for-a-bitmore)


End file.
